Long-lost Dylan Thomas manuscript found

Updated 1905 GMT (0305 HKT) November 14, 2014

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Photos:Long-lost Dylan Thomas manuscript found

Long-lost Dylan Thomas manuscript found – A long-lost notebook once owned by Dylan Thomas which includes drafts of some of his key poems has been rediscovered and put up for sale at Sotheby's auction house in London.

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Photos:Long-lost Dylan Thomas manuscript found

Long-lost Dylan Thomas manuscript found – A label attached to the workbook explains that it was given to Louie King, housemaid to Thomas's mother-in-law, with the instruction to burn it after the poet left it behind on a visit in the 1930s. King writes that she "saved it and forgot all about it until I read of his death" in 1953.

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Photos:Long-lost Dylan Thomas manuscript found

Long-lost Dylan Thomas manuscript found – A letter from Thomas, which accompanies the notebook, explains how much he disliked spending time with his wife's family in in southern England: "This flat English country levels the intelligence, planes down the imagination ... I sit and hate my mother-in-law, glowering at her from corners and grumbling about her in the sad, sticky, quiet of the lavatory."

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Photos:Long-lost Dylan Thomas manuscript found

Long-lost Dylan Thomas manuscript found – Dylan Thomas was born in Swansea, south Wales, in October 1914 -- his centenary is being celebrated with a series of special events in his hometown and around the world.

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Photos:Long-lost Dylan Thomas manuscript found

Long-lost Dylan Thomas manuscript found – He is best known for his "play for voices," Under Milk Wood, and poems including Fern Hill and Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.

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Photos:Long-lost Dylan Thomas manuscript found

Long-lost Dylan Thomas manuscript found – Thomas was known for his hard-drinking lifestyle. He collapsed at New York's Chelsea Hotel shortly after reportedly announcing: "I've had 18 straight whiskies. I think that's the record!" He died in hospital several days later.

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Photos:Long-lost Dylan Thomas manuscript found

Long-lost Dylan Thomas manuscript found – His body was brought back to Laugharne, the south Wales village which had inspired many of his most famous works, and he was buried in the local churchyard (pictured in 1969).